Monday, 02 November 2009

How to watch a music gig in an online banner: how Boondoggle and Axion brought utility to the ad space

Nick Dickson pointed me in the direction of this lovely little video which tells the story of how Boondoggle brought music to the web for their client Axion. whilst I'll let the video speak for itself, its worth considering for a moment the elegance of the creative solution...

I've talked often and at at times at length on a theme of "we media and advertising people got this amazing thing to play with called the internet but we screwed it royally by applying 20th Century broadcast thinking to what was a two-way engagement platform, etc" ...what the above bit of creative thinking shows is a beautifully crafted way of doing what we should be doing... bringing utility to the web

as I type this I'm listening to some tunes courtesy of the joy that is Spotify, an ad by Diesel has just done a similar thing - I caught a snippet about how they've created a branded radio station on the platform to showcase new music. thats utility too. and its a brilliant thing.

all this reminded me of the Windows Apple banner wars from a while back, and whilst the efforts of Apple were an attempt to creatively use the space that is the banner / sky, its still an ad.

the gig in a banner concept goes a simple but crucial step further... by being there on users' not advertisers' terms, its adding value to my time on the internet - not distracting me from it. it deserves every one of the five Cannes Golden Lions it picked up.